Reddit Reddit reviews One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding

We found 3 Reddit comments about One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding
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3 Reddit comments about One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding:

u/Burner2733 · 15 pointsr/weddingplanning

I'm pirating part of this argument from [Rebecca Mead's fantastic book] (http://www.amazon.com/One-Perfect-Day-Selling-American/dp/0143113844) but I think "elopement" to refer to small destination weddings can totally still encompass the original spirit of the term as it applied to escapist weddings! There used to be more demand for a term that described escaping parental or religious pressure than there is now. Now, the large, dominant force of pressure in weddings is the pressure to have a big, expensive Thing. Given that dynamic, a couple escaping financial pressure in order to instead have a small affair with few family members, rather than plated dinner for 200 of their nearest and dearest, (to me at least and some other people) retains the element of sticking it to the forces that be and getting married out of love anyway.

My .02 and again, I totally dig your involvement in the argument, and your thoughtfulness in hearing out mine.

u/kittenhiccups · 6 pointsr/Feminism

I read a really great book while planning my wedding, One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding. It analyzes the commercial aspects of weddings piece by piece and deconstructs what we think of as traditional and "wedding-y." It might inspire you to come up with your own traditions. It certainly helped me feel good about planning my very unusual, casual wedding.

Is there anything other than the white dress, the walking down the aisle, and the taking of his last name that you find oppressive in the marriage process? Those things are all completely optional. I eschewed them all.

Some weddings have all of these parts to them that people think of as necessary - otherwise it won't be a real wedding - but really, you can do, or refuse to do, any and all of it and it will still be a great time and it will still be Your Wedding. Mine looked nothing like the wedding people expect when they think of "weddings" and two years later people still tell me it was the best wedding they've been to by far. We did it our way. It meant the world to us and it would have been so much less "us" if we'd done all the normal stuff, the aisle walk and the bouquet toss and the reception line and blahblahblah.

So figure out what your way is and do that.

u/lemon_meringue · 6 pointsr/SRSWomen

OK, I had a really small DIY wedding, because my awesome husband and I wanted to spend money on a new house and a nice honeymoon instead. It was so beautiful - handsewn dress, gorgeous and heartfelt details, plus my entire family pitched in along with the tiny desert town where we were married. I cried all day because it was like a dream, it was so perfect.

One of the best books I've read in the past ten years is called One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding. It's a solid takedown of the Wedding Industrial Complex and what a shitty thing it is. I recommend it to anyone who ever plans to have a traditional wedding ceremony because it really helps put stuff in perspective.

HOWEVER. I cannot seem to resist TV shows about weddings! I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would choose to spend 8,000 dollars on a dress when that money could buy three weeks in Florence, Italy for two in a gorgeous villa with great food, but I will watch the fuck out of a Say Yes to the Dress marathon. I adore Randy, the stylist. I love the little family mini-dramas that surround the process of choosing "the perfect dress". I love the beautiful, ridiculously overpriced dresses even though I went for something very simple and plain myself. I love the way each woman feels so invested in expressing herself through her choice of dress. Hell, I love the whole damn spectacle of it. WHY IS THIS I DON'T EVEN.

I also have been known to binge on marathons of Four Weddings (AKA Competitive Weddings), and have even been known to gawk at Platinum Weddings, which is generally populated by truly awful people. BUT ALSO SPARKLY THINGS AND PRETTY DRESSES.

I think it's my way of working through my thwarted princess fantasies from childhood or something. That's my rationalization, anyway.